Sri Aurobindo on Mahatma Gandhi's non violence

Written By Kaali on Sunday, August 7, 2011 | 8:36 AM

Sri Aurobindo

“Many educated Indians consider Gandhi a spiritual man. Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. But what he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity,non-violence, suffering, etc. The gospel of suffering that he ispreaching has its root in Russia as nowhere else in Europe—other Christian nations don"t believe in it.”

“Purification can come by the transformation of the impulse of
violence. In that respect the old system in India was much better: the man who had the fighting spirit became the Kshatriya and then the fighting spirit was raised above the ordinary vital influence. The attempt was to spiritualize it. It succeeded in doing what passive resistance cannot and will not achieve. The Kshatriya was the man who would not allow any oppression, who would fight it out and he was the man who would not oppress anybody. That was the ideal. Gandhi"s position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.”